Thursday, January 24, 2013

Meet the commenters: 'Jake H'

Philosophies/inclinations: I'm basically a romantic, humanistic idealist with tendencies toward cynicism and misanthropy. Morally, I think there's one basic rule: Don't be an a-hole, and you know what I mean. Politically, Rule 1 suggests to me a liberal Democratic orientation. Godlessness, yes -- can't be helped -- soullessness, no. A generous spirit is good for the soul. So is art, which is why it's important. No man is an island, no man has a right to monopolize more than he can enjoy, man is a wonderful piece of work, woman is better. In conclusion, Libya is a land of contrast, thank you.

When I'm not lawyering: I try to devour as much fine culture that our great city has to offer -- symphony, opera, ballet, theater -- all that sort of stuffy stuff where you're supposed sit still and be quiet -- as well as museums and architecture. I'm also a movie guy, full of opinions, all correct. I come from classical musicians, and I didn't rebel. If it's not WBEZ, classical music is mainly what I listen to, and I play a little piano too. I read lots of periodicals, which are delivered to my mailbox or door in paper form -- New Yorker, New Republic, New York Review of Books, New York Times, TimeOut Chicago, Tribune, Reader. I buy books faster than I read them. I write too-long comments here and at TNR.com. I also drink beer and watch TV.

These days I'm recommending: I'll keep it to movies, which is where my mind's at these days in the midst of award season (otherwise known as decent movie season): Amour, Zero Dark Thirty, Silver Linings Playbook, A Royal Affair, The Kid with a Bike, The Invisible War, The Central Park Five.

Other websites I frequent: The only other website I'm really addicted to is TNR.com (The New Republic), which, like here, boasts an unusually high-quality community of commenters.

Hello Jake! There are a lot of lawyers who hang out here. Very cool, indeed. I agree with everyone else said. Even if I have a completely different opinion than you on lots of things, you can make a case like no one else.

Zero Dark Thirty- I know one other thread of Meet the Commenters had a little discussion about it. The torture scenes at the beginning were very uncomfortable to watch. Even though I obviously knew the how the story ended, I had to watch to see how it unfolded. It was a little eerie on a personal level because I was recruited by the NSA in college to come work for them since I am multilingual. That obsessive, torture-doling spy-life could have been mine, if I had accepted. Dodged a bullet or bombing, if I dare say!

The problem with Zero Dark Thirty isn't that it depicts torture. The problem is that it erroneously implies that torture was an integral part of the success of capturing bin Laden. That and the fact that the director is simulatneously trying to claim that she took a "journalistic approach", but yet it is "just a movie". Artistic license and journalism are mutually exclusive.

On political matters I appreciate your push from the other side. Pushing against something makes us all stronger.

I learn from your take on matters of art. I wish you would post more on cultural issues. Good catch on “Blake-Tyger-Fearful Symmetry.”

In the past you said you liked Michelle Pfeiffer. Now it’s Jessica Chastain. I am with you on both fronts. Try to retrieve the Charlie Rose interview of Ms. Chastain. I never saw a more charismatic person on CR.

JC got into the Julliard by a two minute audition doing a new take on Shakespeare’s Julliet.

Hi JakeH (I like to say "no relation" because I'm LizH & I don't think we are related - except in viewpoint). :-) I don't think your posts are too long - sometimes wordy is better if it makes sense, which yours always do. I always like to see the "young folk" like classical music, too. And one who still reads actual periodicals, as well! Anyway, good to "know" you!

Very interesting post, JakeH, as always. Many of your comments are long, granted, but not "too" long. I'm sure even the folks on the Right wish, as I do, that you commented more often.

Does the omission of "Argo" from your movie list indicate that you thought "ZD30" was better? If so, I agree. Though I enjoyed "Argo" a lot, I was very surprised that it won Best Picture at the Golden Globes. Also, no "Lincoln"? Or maybe those two were just not current enough to mention at this point...

Nice to hear more about my counterpart from the opposite side of the political spectrum, cultural divide, and Chicago River.

Our interests couldn't be much different. My cultural experiences revolve more around Blackhawks games (so glad they are back), dive bars, and hole in the wall ethnic restaurants, but I do appreciate the variety of what Chicago has to offer. As you may suspect, I spend as much time at the National Review website as you do at TNR - but I respect a lot of the TNR writers (John Judis the most). I'm not much of a moviegoer but I do get dragged to them by my girlfriend on occasion (and I enjoy it more than I admit to her).

What we do have in common are our profession (although I'm in-house and you are at a firm), a tendency to write long comments, and an appreciation for what goes on here at Change of Subject. I always look forward to our exchanges and learn something from each one.

JakeH: I also agree with JerryB's compliments re your level of culture, and his comments about Glenn Gould's interpretation of Bach as ruining one's tolerance for a lot of other music. His Two Part Inventions and the Goldberg Variations, and the Well Tempered Clavier in particulare, are astounding.

Greetings, JakeH. It's nice that you enjoy the fine arts and all, but I'm even more impressed with your ability to quote "The Simpsons." Wielding a fine line from the golden age of "The Simpsons" is an art form in and of itself. Bravo!

Oh, and "The Central Park Five" looks outstanding - I'll have to check it out.

Are "chicks" really impressed when you guys tell them you're lawyers? As in, you say to a semi-bored woman, "Hey, I am a lawyer, an attorney...what do you say, baby?" And then she throws herself at you?

I have never led and would never lead with that. I dance around the job question unless asked point blank. It's like dropping the name of the school you went to, or the car you drive, or that you know this or that person. You never do that (unless she's wearing a "Change of Subject t-shirt" and you drop Eric's name).

On Zero Dark Thirty, my sense was that the film did not say that torture was necessary to find bin Laden. We see the courier stuff coming up in lots of interrogations (the videotapes Chastain pores over), not all of them "enhanced." There's a point at which it seems as though the lead had more-or-less been available all along but had been inadvertently ignored. In any event, we know that torture was part of the picture -- to ignore it I think would have been to sanitize the story. It also makes for compelling drama. What do we think about it? We may wince, like Chastain, but ultimately not mind so much, because the "victim" is a class-A Qaeda creep, and, along with a lot of other emotions, a desire for revenge, though not exploited or celebrated in typical Hollywood fashion, lurks beneath the surface of this movie.

I left off Argo, because, although I liked it well enough, I had some issues with the plot. There's a big hole in their plan -- the business about checking the slips of paper at the airport -- and we don't understand how they get around it or why they expect that they could. (In reality, they often didn't bother checking the slips of paper, and that's what they were banking on. In the movie, they *do* check, but let them through anyway -- why?) Also, it's not clear why it was necessary to go to great lengths to make the fake movie seem real -- there's no payoff for that major part of the story. They should have shown someone in Iran checking the bona fides of the movie so, story-wise, all that would have had a point. The finale is marred by too many contrived nail-biters -- will the tickets come through, will the van get into gear, etc. And I can't stand it when cars chase planes. They should have had the Revolutionary Guard types break into the control tower and demand that the plane abort take-off or turn around or whatever, and then we see the pilot decide to ignore those instructions and take off anyway -- a Swiss hero! On the plus side, the take-over of the embassy was thrilling.

I left off Lincoln, because, sorry, I found it boring. And I'm a big Lincoln fan. I didn't like the granular focus on the political maneuverings in the run-up to passage of the 13th Amendment. I had trouble really following those maneuverings as presented in the movie, and I don't think they're very interesting anyway -- or the movie didn't convince me that they were. The movie, to my mind, misses the larger sweep of history and Lincoln's place in it. It doesn't explain why this time was so incredible, or why Lincoln was so great. At the beginning of the movie, Lincoln has already delivered the greatest speech in American history, he's already signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and there are already black soldiers in the Union army. I thought, sheesh, we're skipping past all the good parts -- all the signposts on the way toward what Lincoln called the "astounding result" -- the end of slavery in America. The movie skipped ahead to the end -- the political procedural, if that's a term, lining up the votes -- capped off with the climactic vote in all its Spielbergian corniness -- a Scrooge-like villain, aw-shucks decency -- that rang false, although I'll admit that it was a welcome respite from Kushner's often tedious script. (Critics congratulated the movie on its wordiness, but the words aren't so great.) Missing is *Lincoln's* intellectual/political/moral journey, which is at the heart of the whole business. I recemmend Eric Foner's recent book on this topic, The Firey Trial, to get a real sense of Lincoln's greatness -- how he "evolved" on the issue, as we would say now, letting himself be pushed by radicals as he helped shepherd events toward what only now seems like the inveitable outcome. Also, I didn't really warm to Lincoln. Perhaps the portrayal was accurate, but we're told that he's "beloved" and I didn't see why. He seems like an enigma with a tiresome penchant for telling little anecdotes every two seconds rather than getting to the point, as though he's a prophet, profession-bound to speak in riddles. Lincoln *was* nortoriously hard to read, or so said contemporary observers, but he was also thought to be very likeable and, in any case, part of the point of a movie like this is to let *us* understand him. I wanted a feature-length version of the Adams miniseries treatment. Maybe that would have required a somewhat longer film, but it probably would have felt shorter.

Jerry, Murray Perahia is my favorite pianist -- good taste, man. As for the "odd man out" stuff, I sort of feel like what I called "fine culture" is the odd man out generally, but there are thankfully plenty of like-minded folks around.

MOPerinia, I don't think anyone is impressed with lawyers. It's like being impressed with air, or germs -- they're everywhere.

Oops, another too-long post. I guess I've taken your reassurances on that score to heart. Time to go back to playing my tiny little piano. Perhaps some persecuted conservative would like join me on their world's tiniest violin. Cheers!

Greetings to my demographic and, more or less, philosophical doppelganger (if definitely more cultured - my tastes seem to be a mixture of yours and GregJ's). But it's the thoughtfulness, patience, thoroughness and clarity of expression that make you my favorite commenter, not our similarity of belief. As I've said before, you often say what I'd like to say but with a lot more of those four qualities.

Now I might skip seeing Lincoln. Nice in depth review, Jake.
Single women looking for long term potential fathers would definitely be impressed with single lawyers like any of you are now or were in your 30's. Especially ones who had neon signs. Ha!

And Jerry still looking fit like a furniture mover is impressive. I am sure your wife is happy about that.

"The problem with Zero Dark Thirty isn't that it depicts torture. The problem is that it erroneously implies that torture was an integral part of the success of capturing bin Laden." - Leon Pannetta said waterboarding aided in capturing bin Laden.

I appreciate that in-depth movie analysis, JakeH. I agree with everything you said about "Argo", especially the part about the cars chasing the plane, which was just too over-the-top.

I disagree pretty strongly with some of your disdain for "Lincoln". Certainly, it was wordy and I can understand some being bored. But that didn't bother me. And I agree that featuring just that particular period of time and political battle might not have been my choice. (Your reference to the John Adams miniseries certainly resonates with me. When I left "Lincoln", my primary feeling was a bit of sadness that it couldn't have been a miniseries and covered a lot more territory, with that same brilliant cast and production design.) But, I thought Lincoln himself seemed very wry and likeable and that Day-Lewis did a remarkable job. The other actors were tremendous, too. I particularly liked the 3 rogues who were in charge of rounding up votes. Casting those guys was brilliant, IMHO. I guess I didn't mind the "granular focus" as much as you did. A brisker look at a greater number of events might have been more in keeping with the pace we're used to in movies today. But I thought the language, measured pace, darkness of the lighting, and seeming authenticity of the sets in many of the scenes did more to make me feel that I was actually witnessing the events of that time period than anything else I've seen.

Greg J., JerryB, MCN,
I find it only fitting that the 3 amigos of the Cabal are the ones to gleefully lay claim to the "Esq." designation...

I would say "sheesh", Jerry, but MCN has threatened to hunt me down like a dog, if I do. I KNOW it was a joke. I guess I need to put a wink next to any comment that might be misconstrued. So, here you go. ; )

Thanks Jakash, I know I'm in the minority, and I've been told that I was just in a bad mood when I saw it -- but, the thing about a great movie, or whatever else, is that it has the power to banish one's shallow, temporary doldrums, to overcome one's emotional resistance. This one didn't do that -- rather compounded the problem, I'm afraid. In a spirit of compromise, I will concede that Tommy Lee Jones was uncontroversially awesome. But I wasn't moved by, say, the telegraph operators scene -- sort of the heart & soul of the film. Although we know Lincoln studied Euclid, I don't think he actually would have made a connection between Euclidean logic and human equality, which struck me as a bit specious and post-modern sounding (Lincoln actually would have thought of human equality in terms of God or natural law, as we know), nor do I think he would have asked, "Do you think we choose to be born?" Huh? I didn't *dislike* Kushner's/Day-Lewis's Lincoln, but I found him to be an underwhelming presence. Yes, Lincoln did have a higher-pitched voice than we might expect. Yes, he walked awkwardly, arms hanging down like an ape. But he was also charismatic in his way, and this Lincoln just didn't do it for me I guess. Lincoln was, if nothing else, and unlike Day-Lewis, impressively tall and rugged looking. Sorry to say that I think Spielberg's original idea of casting Liam Neeson *might* have been a better choice....

Hello, Jake, and my apologies for taking so long to see who's introducing themselves. As I told Eric, it's FAFSA season. Hey, a use for that tiny violin!

"... I don't think anyone is impressed with lawyers. It's like being impressed with air, or germs -- they're everywhere."

Ha! Got to be one of the best lines of the week. I've enjoyed my share of lawyer jokes but find I almost always like the ones I meet personally. And I've wondered more than once if I did the right thing becoming a librarian, when I might have gone to law school and made something of myself.

Classical music, words on real hold-in-your-hand paper: I am with you, sir, in more than just your politics.

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"Change of Subject" by Chicago Tribune op-ed columnist Eric Zorn contains observations, reports, tips, referrals and tirades, though not necessarily in that order. Links will tend to expire, so seize the day. For an archive of Zorn's latest Tribune columns click here. An explanation of the title of this blog is here. If you have other questions, suggestions or comments, send e-mail to ericzorn at gmail.com.
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